Ryzen 3 3300X vs Ryzen 5 3500

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 3 3300X and the Ryzen 5 3500 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 3 3300X has 4 cores and 8 threads, and the Ryzen 5 3500 has 6 cores and 6 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen 5 3500 help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.3 GHz and 4.1 GHz.

Platform, power and price

Both chips use the AM4 socket, so they fit the same motherboards. You can swap one for the other without changing the board.

Rated power is 65 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Ryzen 3 3300X cost $120 and the Ryzen 5 3500 $149, which gives 34.2 and 27.5 points of gaming performance per $100. Today's prices will differ.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Ryzen 3 3300X can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen 5 3500 reaches the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 3 3300X if you want the faster gaming chip. Choose the Ryzen 5 3500 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.